The above study examines the relation between business ethics and corporate reputation and introduces the well-known and widely used methods and methodologies to asses corporate reputation, in order to put into light the contribution of business ethics. The main hypothesis is that an ethical behavior, supported by a sustainable corporate social responsability component, is a powerful antecedent of a strong reputation, while an unethical behavior can generate a very high reputational risk, which can be fatal for firm’s survival. The main conclusion is that an ethical behavior is a pillar of corporate reputation and it is supported by a range of arguments: the widely used methodolgies to asses corporate reputation include in their evaluation criteria the ethical component, even if we talk about the quality of products, the quality of management, the financial or social performance; 90% of the companies listed in Fortune rankings have codes of ethics; in the same time, some recent surveys indicate that managers consider unethical behavior a major reputational risk (the second after financial irregularities). Finally, the study introduces some new trends in assessing ethical behavior, like intra-industry cooperation, taking business with ethical partners or being “ethically” visible in the public space.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: L21 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Business Objectives of the Firm M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Social Responsibility M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics